Indian cold + reminder

Every year, in India, hundreds of people die in summer from the extreme heat. Then in the winter, the poor and the homeless perish from the extreme cold. So far this winter, the toll is said to be at least two dozen.

Particularly badly hit have been Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, while in Delhi temperatures have gone down to almost -8C, and at Leh in Kashmir, the thermometer had dipped to -23. Homeless people have taken to gathering around street fires to keep warm, and night shelters for the poor are overflowing.

Last winter up to 100 people died from the cold, with most victims coming from Uttar Pradesh. (See my blog of Jan 4, 2010.)

*A reminder that I’m giving a free talk on London's Disasters at Shoe Lane Library, 1, Little New Street, London EC4A 3JR tomorrow (January 4) at 1230.

Really Cold Weather

We’ve just had the coldest December for a decade in England and Wales, and the icy weather has continued into January, but if you’re feeling a bit chilly, think for a moment what it must have been like to have been caught up in what became known as the “Schoolhouse Blizzard” which hit the Great Plains of the United States 121 years ago today on January 12, 1888.

It got its name because many of the victims were children being taught in the one-room schoolhouses that then dotted rural America. One teacher in Nebraska found hers running out of fuel and decided to take her three pupils to her boarding house just 80 yards away, but they immediately got lost in the blinding snowstorm and all the children died. Altogether more than 230 people perished.